the UK in general.

It was really nice to come to the UK (despite the lower temperatures and rain) and for us to stay with my uncle Charlie in Birmingham. He has really taken care of us and we have been able to really relax, as well as save money. From here we were able to take small back packs and go on an assortment of small trips: London for a night, followed by Paris for three nights, Dublin for three nights, and back to London for a night.

All were great. While in England, we made other little trips with Charlie out to Stratford-upon-avon (where we saw the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of The Winter's Tale - absolutely brilliant! and for free!), and we also went up to Lincoln where I got to meet my beautiful cousin Lucy. In Birmingham we mostly just chilled out a bit, did little tours around the city and went to Cadbury World (where we picked up a lifetime supply of chocolates), did some shopping and saw a few nice bars.

On our first trip to London, Charlie took us in for the day to do the Top 10's... Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the London Bridge, Tower of London... all those juicy touristy hotspots. I had been to London before, but it was when I was young and I couldn't remember anything that well.
We stayed in Camden Town that night, so we got to explore that really cool neighborhood a bit (though, of course, not enough).
The next time we came to London, we talked beforehand about not doing anything touristy in the least, but that was kind of hard to avoid. We wanted to poke around The Globe and see the Tate Modern, which were both cool, and the Globe happened to have a performance on of R&J, which we were on time for. We got 5£ "groundling" stand up tickerts, but left after Intermission... because well... it just wasn't that good unfortunately. (It's hard to sit (or stand!) through a weak performance after seeing something with the RSC.)
Anyway, had a fun time in Covent Garden, Oxford Circus and found some cool bars that we enjoyed too. It just wasn't nearly enough time there... we will have to go back and get to know the city when we have more time to.